


we were written in the stars, you and i

by SbiderSlut (BlackCoffeeCat)



Series: Sbider's Tony Stark Bingo 2019 [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ancient History, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, M/M, Murder, Mythology References, Past Character Death, Past Lives, Philosophy, Platonic Soulmates, Reincarnation, Soulmates, Suicide, happy-ish ending, hence all the death tags, they die multiple times in multiple lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-07 18:22:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17965709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCoffeeCat/pseuds/SbiderSlut
Summary: 缘分 (yuán fèn) -- Fateful Affinity; a relationship by fate or destinyLiving, loving, dying. Sometimes, not even those.Swept up in Mnemosyne's current, Tony Stark and Peter Parker remember their past lives.---Fill for Tony Stark Bingo 2019 (K5 - AU: Ancient Civilization)---Перевод на русский





	we were written in the stars, you and i

**Author's Note:**

> This kind of ran away from me a little bit. It's a mash-up of me remember the ending of LOST, reorganizing my library and seeing all the philosophical texts I've hoarded throughout the years, and a sudden craving for soulmate angst. 
> 
> Like mentioned in the tags, Peter and Tony die multiple times in the past. Some are murder, some are suicide, some are death in battle, some are execution. They are, and stay alive in their present, though. 
> 
> I'm a history nut, especially for military history, but it's been a long time since I've brushed up or really dived into historical research and archives, so I'm playing it fast and loose with these scenes. Also, the concept of 缘分 is a complex one that I tried to put into words, but really there's no translation which can fully encompass what it means. But that's the gist of it, I guess.

缘分 ( _yuán fèn_ ) -- Fateful Affinity; a relationship by fate or destiny

"有缘千里来相会，无缘对面不相识" -- _with fate, you'll meet from a thousand miles away; without, you'll miss each other standing face-to-face_

-

In the end, all it takes is a few simple, tender words and a kiss.

“I’ll love you forever,” Tony murmurs, lips quirked in a silly smile, as he leans in and seals his lips over Peter’s. “Forever, and ever, and ever. This lifetime, and the next.”

With a strangled gasp, Peter pulls back, eyes so wide that Tony has half a mind to reach out and catch them because surely, they’re about to fall right out of Peter’s head. “Tony,” he breathes.

Then, there are tears. Those wide eyes well up, and the only two words which Tony can summon to describe Peter’s expression is, oxymoronically, heartbroken and relieved. “Honey?” he begins to question, and then _it_ hits him, too.

It’s like being dropped into a hurricane; memories -- hundreds of them, possibly thousands -- all rushing to the forefront of his reeling mind like a dam being burst. One shocked breath, and Tony gets swept underwater, sucked into the violent torrent of the river Mnemosyne.

Lives of people -- no, not just _people._

It’s _them._

Tony and Peter. Living, loving, dying.

Over, and over, and _over._

Tony flinches, as if he can feel the phantom agony of their original split -- as if he can feel the scorch of torn flesh as they were cruelly split by Zeus’ bolt, or the heartbroken suffering as they were haphazardly twisted and stitched into two half-beings by a merciful Apollo. Even now, that far-gone memory _hurts_.

“It’s you,” is all Tony can say, feeling tears sting at his own eyes. He cradles Peter’s face between his hands and brings them close, forehead to forehead, breath intermingling, noses brushing. “You.”

They’ve gone by so many names. Lived so many lives. And at the end of the day, they don’t need names. Tony is one half, Peter is another half; together, they are a whole -- descended from the Sun, split by a cruelly fearful Zeus. They need no name.

“Yes, me,” Peter warbles. “I’m here.”

Together, engulfed by lifetimes of memories, they drown in Mnemosyne’s waters.

-

_Alexander and Hephaistion stand together, a meeting of generals, on the eve of battle. And a great battle, it will be. So much depends on what will happen on the plains of Gaugamela tomorrow; should they prove victorious, Babylon is theirs to take._

_“Is your steed strong?” Petre asks, first, as Antonij steps into the privacy of the small tent. “Is he fed? Watered?”_

_They’ve been through far enough battles that the fear has long passed -- they’ve both learned through witness that fear does a soldier no good. Petre’s voice is steady; his tone is strong._

_To be afraid is futile. Dangerous, even._

_But asking after Antonij’s steed? That has use. The more prepared the steed, the more faithfully it will it will carry its rider tomorrow. The more likely it is that Antonij will survive the flanking charge tomorrow. It’s the riskiest tactical maneuver they’ve seen, yet Alexander’s military prowess is unquestionable. This charge just may prove to be a move of pure genius or innovation._

_Genius or not, though, in any battle, soldiers die. It’s inevitable._

_This practical effort -- it's the only thing Petre can do, as an infantry soldier who will be in the midst of his phalanx._

_“Yes,” Antonij assures. “She is strong. She is prepared. As am I.” He settles down on his knees, at Petre’s feet, and reaches for the tie of the other soldier’s sandals. “As for you? You march tomorrow, and it will be a taxing battle on foot. Let me care for you.”_

_Petre stands, steadfast and unwavering, as one of his sandals is undone, and then the next. He sighs as kisses are placed up his leg, from ankle bone to the tops of his thighs, and then he’s relenting and tugging Antonij to his feet. “Come,” he murmurs, the barest of pleading in his tone. “Let us lay together as soldiers of Thebes do, this eve,” he says. “Let us lay together as our generals surely do. Nothing else is certain.”_

_“Yes, love,” Antonij agrees, and they say no more for that night, no more than the quietest words spoken against the sticky-sweatiness of one another’s skin._

_And as Antonij swings up onto his mount the next day, it’s with a sense that they’re at an end._

_He rides, swift and flying, with his squadron, fueled by the sense-memory of Petre’s touch._

_He knows, Petre marches to the same cadence across the plains of Gaugamela._

_They go forth._

_-_

“I don’t think I got to see Babylon,” Peter whispers, head breaking water’s surface for the shortest of breaths.

“That’s alright,” Tony says, voice hoarse. “Neither did I.”

And they’re drawn under, again.

-

_They're to salt the city. That’s what Scipio had ordered, and although that duty falls below Anthony’s rank, the thought is a rather shocking one to them all._

_Victory in battle and in war is one matter, and triumph in conquest is the ambition of any warrior, but --_

_Anthony endeavors not to think over the orders too deeply._

_His job is simple -- pillage and capture. Kill, if he so chooses._

_The less he thinks, the better, to be quite honest._

_That is, until this little waif of a thing scampers across the path and freezes in place as Anthony’s gaze falls right on his lanky body._

_Time stops._

_The clanging of conquer echoes around them -- screams of defeat and howls of war, the clashing of metal over rock, wails of anguish and pain. Doors being torn off hinges and families being dismantled._

_Anthony stares._

_This boy looks impossibly young, but it’s the fear in his wide eyes, with just the faintest ring of brown around dilated black pupils. His hair -- curled and brown -- is matted with sweat, sticks to his dirt-streaked face, and his entire body seems to thrum with fawn-like terror, even as he stands still in place and maintains unblinking eye contact._

_(Almost as if resigning himself and choosing to look his killer in the face.)_

_The sword feels extraordinarily heavy in Anthony’s grasp, suddenly._

_Without a thought, it falls to his side -- something he’d never imagined allowing to happen, up to the day he dies a warrior._

_He’d never known himself to experience this kind of mercy which floods his veins now, neutralizing the fury of adrenaline like water over raging fire, but he does so, now._

_He nods, at the frozen boy._

_He, himself, isn’t even quite sure what he’s conveying, but it comes across._

_A breath, and then the boy darts off, quickly lost in the whirlwind of raping and pillaging which befalls Carthage this day._

_-_

“You…” Peter’s breath catches. “You let me go. Why?”

Tony grits his teeth and wills his body to stop shaking. “Because,” he says. “It was you.”

“I… I think I died. Someone killed me. I never saw you again.”

“Christ. Fuck.”

“At least you didn’t kill me.”

 _In this one_ , Tony thinks, feeling sick to his stomach. Because he feels them, looming in the back of his mind. Tragedy after tragedy, some of their own making.

Another tide, another crash. They’re swept under, again.

-

_The mariner levels his bow, standing at the helm of his ship, and feels the tension of the string as it clings to the tip of his single digit. So much power, contained in a single point of touch. He draws the string back, feeling the power build._

_Perched high above the stern of the ship, a large albatross sits, graceful and silent. Unbothered._

_The mariner aims. Exhales. Releases._

_The arrow soars._

_With a choked-off cry -- the aborted first notes of a birdsong -- the albatross falls._

_And inexplicably, the mariner feels his heart ache._

_-_

There are no words.

Horrified tears trickle down Tony’s cheeks, as he listens to the low, broken cries which fall from Peter’s lips.

 _I’m sorry,_ he thinks. _I’m so fucking sorry._ Blindly, his hands shake as they cup tighter to Peter’s face, and Tony feels hot, burning tears soak the calloused skin of his murderer’s fingers -- Peter’s tears, falling down and down and into the cradle of Tony’s palms like an ocean of woes.

For everything happy, there are twice as many woes.

Such is life.

Peter’s hands come up, too, pawing and stroking at Tony’s cheeks with distraught desperation, and Tony hears it all too clearly, _It’s okay, It’s okay._

It’s really not, but they’ll try their best to be.

-

_Pierre puts up no fight as he’s dragged forward by two guards. He puts up no fight as he’s shoved up the steps to the platform, one step at a time. So young, so brave, so fearless._

_So revolutionary._

_That had been his crime, in the end, like far too many of his peers. Like the Girondins._

_Antoine turns away as the blade drops. He thinks of those few kisses, those quietly uttered words they’d been reluctant to say any louder than in the lowest of whispers. Those are what he wants to remember -- not the bloodied head which drops from the guillotine’s blade to join hundreds of others, nor the blood which splatters to join the crimson river which runs through the streets of Paris._

_Neither he nor Pierre believe in a God. But he’s willing to, for just a moment. His own reckoning is coming, soon -- they’re all being rounded up at this point, swiftly and one after another. If there’s a link -- and gosh, their names are all intertwined at this point, there are an intracable amount of links (they’d been so voracious in their beliefs that there’s no hiding from the swift punishment which is biting at their heels) -- they will be found._

_They will be punished._

_Antoine, for one, has no urge to run anymore. Let that which chases him catch up. He has no desire to outrun anything, without Pierre running beside him.._

_He’s not religious. But, he thinks, he’d like to be welcomed into the same afterwards as Pierre, be it paradise, purgatory, or the burning inferno. He thinks, he’d like to see Pierre again._

_(And years later, as the execution and the drop after drop of the Guillotine is turned against the aristocracy and those in power, they’re already long gone, lost into the river of time.)_

-

_Flashes, and flashes, and flashes._

_-_

_The sickness is the most merciful; it takes them swiftly and quickly, within a day of one another. They suffer, like the thousands in their city, but at least they both cease to breathe._

_It’s the best they could ask for._

_-_

_It takes time for the timidity to leave Petros. It takes time for him to stop regarding Andonios with a sense of trepidation and wariness, not yet familiar enough to know what he should expect, yet._

_It takes time -- one dinner at a time, one poured cup of wine at a time. One bunch of grapes and one bowl of olives at a time. One halted, measured conversation at a time, as Petros slowly acclimates himself to the handsome older man._

_Andonios waits -- patient and unwavering._

_And one night, Petros comes to him, hands clutching at a tome -- The Symposium. “They say that you may be willing to teach me,” he begins, voice soft, even as his eyes implore with a curiosity for knowledge despite what one could easily assume is an illiterate background. Andonios recognizes it -- it’s one of the reasons he’d been taken by the younger man in the first place. “Would you?”_

_“It would be my pleasure,” Andonios says._

_And that’s the final path they have left to journey -- one page at a time. One chapter at a time. One tome at a time._

_When Petros finally, on a balmy summer night, presses their lips together in a soft kiss and requests that Andonios takes him to bed, Andonios complies, knowing in his heart of hearts that he’s found the one whose navel matches his. The one who’s of the same child of the Sun._

_Aristophanes watches over them, as they lay in blissful unity -- the apex of joy -- and never has Andonios felt more powerful -- more complete._

_They could be gods, together._

_-_

_It’s forbidden -- the Church, the scripture, the very words of their God all forbid it._

_Peter is young and idealistic -- he prays, and prays and prays and prays to every patron saint._

_‘Pater noster, qui es in caelis…’_

_‘Pater noster…’_

_‘Pater noster?’_

_They’re both unable to withstand temptation; they sin._

_And Peter falls, unable to bear the darkness of his desires. He tumbles off the cliffside into the foam of the ocean._

_Anthony follows, calling out for Lucifer._

_There’s a place for them -- it’s not here, but Anthony hopes they’ll find it._

_-_

Peter weeps, and weeps, and weeps, these earnest, shattered noises just tumbling out of him with reckless abandon. They’d died so many times. They’d found one another -- and then lost one another -- in so many ways, both incredible and terrible.

Peter cries out an eternity of broken hearts without the slightest attempt to hold them back.

And Tony? He weeps, too, low and rough and hitching as his heart pounds in his chest with the sheer, devastating breadth of what they’ve just witnessed. He pulls Peter into his arms with a fevered urgency to keep the boy close, and he embraces Peter impossibly tight, with a zealousness which he finds rather frightening. “I’m right here,” he rasps, tone overflowing with ardency, words uttered right against the salty wetness of Peter’s cheek. “I’m not leaving you. Fuck, I’m not leaving you. Not ever.”

“Me neither, I swear,” Peter agrees, turning to seal their lips together in a wet, salty kiss. “Promise me,” he implores, lips moving against Tony’s. “Promise.”

“I promise,” Tony agrees, no hesitation. There’s no doubt -- they’re intertwined to their very souls, with history as proof. “I’ll find you. Again and again. This lifetime, and the next.”

_Fate wills it._

Peter laughs, broken, yet so relieved -- an everlasting flux of the deepest, most tumultuous of symphonic melodies.

Readily, he echoes, “This lifetime, and the next.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Any comments are incredibly appreciated! <3 <3
> 
> \--- 
> 
> I am [SbiderSlut](http://sbiderslut.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. Come by and say hi! 💖💕


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